Begin by plotting reports of violent crimes, add pinpoint locations of shootings and finally layer in the homicides.

The maps are telling, instantly readable, and Toronto police use se them to choose where to deploy officers and concentrate their efforts, including the documenting of citizens in mostly non-criminal encounters.

The series, which examined police data, found that people with black and brown skin are stopped and documented at a high rate, even more so for young black and brown men.

Most have done nothing wrong.

Overall in Toronto, the number of individual young black men, aged 15 to 24, who were “carded” — stopped and documented by police — between 2008 and mid-2011 was 3.4 times greater than the city’s population of young black men.

The number of carded brown young men was 1.8 times greater than the young brown male population. For white young males, the ratio was about equal.

This
comparison
allowed for a provocative question: Could it be that police in certain areas have documented every young black and brown kid who lives there?

A
Star
patrol-level analysis — there are 72 patrol zones in the city — showed where police are documenting the most people.

Unsurprisingly, they are areas where there has been violent crime, higher levels of unemployment and low incomes, more single-parent households and fewer opportunities. They include many of the city’s 13 “priority” — that is, at-risk — neighbourhoods.

They are areas where more newcomers live and there are higher populations of non-white people. Youth who live in these areas feel targeted by police. Community workers and criminologists worry that the relationship between police and black and brown youth is badly strained.

Blair insists police are targeting violent crime areas and that documenting people who move about those areas is good police work.

A
Star
analysis found that black people are more likely to be stopped and documented than white people in
each of the city’s 72 patrol zones
. Moreover, the likelihood increases in zones that are predominantly white and wealthier.

Officers stop and question people and document who they are with on Field Information Report cards. Personal details, including physical descriptions, are then entered into a huge database, which officers can search later in the aftermath of crimes. More than a million individuals have been documented in the past three years; the number of cards filled out jumped 18 per cent between 2008 and 2011.

Police say the database is a valuable investigative tool that provides leads on witnesses and suspects.

Critics have called it a “no walk” list for young black men. A criminology doctoral student described the patterns of stops described in the
Star
analysis and in his own work as reminiscent of apartheid South Africa.

In response to the
Star
series, Alok Mukherjee, chair of the Toronto Police Services Board, tabled a recommendation this past week that calls for the city auditor to conduct an independent review of police stop data, including a look at whether public trust has been affected.

Blair does not believe that every kid in certain neighbourhoods may have been documented. He rightly points out that many of those documented are questioned in areas where they do not live.

He initially allowed the
Star
to simply view the crime hot spot maps but later decided to release them in the hope they would give a better understanding of how police choose to target areas and just how concentrated the areas can be.

Police use similar maps to decide each summer where to deploy officers as part of the force’s neighbourhood Toronto Anti-Violence Intervention Strategy (TAVIS).

Violent crimes — robberies and shootings — and reports of violence are geo-coded and plotted on maps. A computer program zeroes in on areas where the three overlap. Crime rates are calculated. Shootings per square kilometre are studied. What emerges is a crime hot spot map that drills down with street-level precision.

The maps are shared with intelligence officers and strategies are discussed, both short and long term.

Ten hot spot areas are then reviewed and two to three are chosen for TAVIS initiatives. These tactics have taken guns off the street and seen reductions in violent crimes.

For the entire
Star
series, including interactive maps, an animated info-graphic movie and related series that date back a decade, go to
thestar.com/knowntopolice
.

More on thestar.com

We value respectful and thoughtful discussion. Readers are encouraged to flag comments that fail to meet the standards outlined in our
Community Code of Conduct.
For further information, including our legal guidelines, please see our full website
Terms and Conditions.